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The noble Lord, Lord Patel, and I tabled this amendment because, although the upstream work—the licensing of research—is well and truly covered by the matters being discussed under this Bill and the downstream work that needs to be in place to bring about the licensing of any therapy is in place, the middle part is missing. That has to start in this Bill, because it involves the licensing of a piece of research on a stem cell line for both research and therapy. We are in effect putting into place a missing middle link in a process and that missing link has to originate, as I understand it, in this Bill. Perhaps the noble Baroness could comment on that in her reply.
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Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, these amendments are clearly motivated by the desire to see the rapid translation into practice of treatments for serious diseases. That is a laudable aim and one that the Government, of course, share. The debate is largely one of ways and means rather than of principle. These amendments would extend the remit of the HFEA to enable it to license the creation, keeping and use of embryos for non-reproductive, therapeutic purposes—for example, the creation of embryonic stem cells for implantation into a person to treat a disease or a medical condition, as we have heard this evening.
Much of the support for embryo research is in part due to the potential for such research to develop therapies for currently incurable conditions. Our decision not to make provision in the Bill for the creation of human embryos for the purpose of therapy was made not because we did not want to support potentially revolutionary therapeutic interventions such as embryonic stem cell-based therapies. I hear the evidence in relation to the timing cited by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others. The Government are—perhaps were—of the opinion that this technology is not yet ready for use in the treatment of patients, although the potential is huge and is rightly being explored with vigour.
It is not possible to know at this time the answer to questions such as how many embryos would be needed to provide an effective treatment, or how many conditions such a treatment could cover. In the Government’s view, it is also not possible to fully understand at this time the scope of the treatment for which these therapies could be used. These debates would be better placed once all the facts are available; Parliament would then be able to frame the rules and regulations. This is not just about switching licences for therapy. Many noble Lords, including the noble Earl, Lord Howe, have raised the important question of regulation. The regulation of the creation of therapeutic interventions would, of course, go wider than the HFEA.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for her explanation. I am sure that it is absolutely correct. I cannot confirm it officially, but I will come back to noble Lords. The safety of treatments would need to be examined and the techniques by which they were created would need considerable oversight. Without having a full policy on when and how licences for therapy should be granted, it would not be possible to anticipate all the changes that would be needed to make the 1990 Act ready to enable proper regulation and licensing. This means that a regulation-making power would also be needed to make changes to the Act at the appropriate time. Such a regulation-making power would need to be very broad, enabling changes to HFEA licensing procedures, licence conditions, storage and consent.
It is absolutely right that research into treatment should continue. The 1990 Act does, and will continue to, permit the creation of embryos for research. This means that embryos can be created for pre-clinical research trials and beyond, as long as the creation is still for research purposes. The Government believe that we would perhaps be better placed to consider informed and appropriate new primary legislation to
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Lord Patel: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer and I thank all noble Lords who have supported the amendment. It clearly has widespread support in the House.
Let me answer one or two points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Howe—I cannot answer them fully, because of time. It is important to understand that the use of ES cells in patients will be regulated by the MHRA, not the HFEA. However, all the cell lines currently made in this country are made from embryos licensed to be used only for research, not for therapy purposes. There might therefore be difficulty in using these cell lines for therapy purposes. The EU directive requires that the EU ask whether the cell lines were created in an environment of which it would approve: the GMP facilities. Hence the need to allow under licence the creation of embryos for storage and the creation of lines at GMP facilities so that we are ready to have them.
On the number of lines required, that might again be a decision that the regulators, such as the MHRA and the EU directive, must make on the basis of a therapy. But it could be that we require only one stem cell line. Embryonic stem cell lines, when kept under proper conditions, are immortal. You can produce vats of cell lines from one stem cell line. It is not rocket science to know how many lines. The maximum that we require for our population might be 15, even for some kind of tissue-matching purposes; that would depend on the immunogenicity, but I would not go there.
I am slightly concerned by the Minister’s response that this matter will be taken back to another place to be, perhaps, amended. I hear that it is not that easy to bring forward such an amendment. I hope that the Minister will suggest that we have a discussion before Third Reading, so that we know exactly what will happen.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, of course we will certainly continue to have discussions with noble Lords before Third Reading. Should it not be possible to do something before Third Reading—as I sadly suspect—I know that my colleague in the other place would wish to continue having discussions with noble Lords in this place who tabled this amendment.
Lord Patel: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I beg to move that consideration on Report be now adjourned. In moving the Motion, I suggest that Report begin again not before 8.45 pm.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
Wine
7.45 pm
Lord Sewel asked Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the report of the European Union Committee on European Wine: A Better Deal for All.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we have had a rather tortuous journey in the timing of this debate on the reform of the European wine regime. It is perhaps appropriate that we address the issue of wine reform during the dinner hour. I am not quite sure of the relationship between wine and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, but I am sure we could find one if we look hard enough.
To get down to business, the present wine regime is one of the few remaining unreformed elements of the common agricultural policy. It portrays all the worst elements of the CAP in its first incarnation. It is based on a combination of production subsidies and production controls: a failed answer to the problem of European agriculture. Our conclusion is that, as it stands, the wine regime is bad for consumers, bad for entrepreneurial producers and bad for the European taxpayer. We adopt a position that there is a need for urgent and fundamental reform, a position supported by the Commission and Her Majesty’s Government. It is bad for consumers because it encourages the production of types and a quality of wine that, quite frankly, the consumer does not wish to drink.
Throughout the EU as a whole, wine consumption is declining. Ironically, it is only in the more northern countries, traditionally non-wine-producing member states, that consumption is increasing. In those countries, however, the consumer is choosing to drink more and more non-EU wine from new world countries.
The effect of this switch to new world wine is that the European Union is on the cusp of becoming a net importer of wine, something which is difficult to comprehend. How has this state of affairs come about? Brutally, it has come about because new world producers produce what the consumer wants and is prepared to pay for. They have developed a method of marketing their wine which is consumer driven. It is reasonably priced, and particularly strong in the important market segment of the medium price range: £5 to £10 per bottle. It is of reasonably good quality and presented in a way that is easy for the consumer to understand, concentrating on grape variety, country of production and year of vintage, rather than the intricacies of chateau and terroir which characterise so much EU wine and are frankly often impenetrable to the consumer buying the bottle from the supermarket on the way home. Above all, new world wine has the consistency and predictability of taste that the consumer demands. However, that very predictability has been almost sneered at and regarded with contempt by too many voices in the European wine industry. The European
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The wine regime is bad for consumers, but it is also bad for the taxpayer—a figure we found strangely absent from the concerns of those, especially in the Agriculture Committee of the European Parliament, who were intent on preserving the main features of a fundamentally failed system: the status quo. The wine regime costs the European taxpayer €1.3 billion a year, about two-thirds of which is paid out in support of distillation which is, in essence, a production subsidy. It is not only expensive but, more importantly, it insulates the producer from the reality of the market and leads in some areas to the ludicrous practice of producing wine not for the market but for taxpayer-funded industrial distillation. Distillation subsidies and their abolition are at the heart of the problem facing the EU wine industry.
The existing wine regime is not only bad for the consumer and the taxpayer, it is bad for the innovative, market-oriented producer. Rather than supporting the promotion of the product, the labelling constraints faced by European producers too often act as a block between the producer and the consumer. Above all, potential new entrepreneurial, market-oriented producers are frozen out by the application of planting rights, which means that potential new entrants are denied entry to the market and existing, often inefficient, growers are protected. The argument in favour of planting rights is that while surplus production exists and people are being paid to leave the industry, it does not make sense to allow newcomers to enter the market. We take a fundamentally different view. We argue that, as long as distillation subsidies are removed, new entrants, whose success or failure will be completely dependent upon their success in the marketplace, should be welcomed and, indeed, are necessary if the EU wine industry is to turn itself around and flourish. We take the view that the present wine regime is totally misguided, unsustainable and in need of fundamental reform. Happily, this view is very largely shared by the European Commission, and I now want to turn to its original proposals. I am sure the Minister will update us with the outcome of the latest Agricultural Council meeting.
The most important of the Commission’s proposals is the ending of all distillation subsidies. That is not only central: it is vital if the European wine industry is to stand a chance of getting closer to its market and its consumers. Another proposal concerns planting rights, which were originally due to expire in 2010. The Commission’s original proposal was to extend them to 2013, and I understand that as a result of the understandable compromise reached at the Agricultural Council meeting, they are being extended to 2015. We have reservations about that. We think that encouraging new entrants is an essential way forward for the European wine industry, and we regret that it has been necessary to make that compromise, although we understand the political reality and necessity.
There are a number of other matters, such as labelling, where progress is being made, but perhaps not quite fast enough. I cannot for the life of me understand
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Overall, the outcome has been enormously beneficial. The key objectives of the Commission’s proposals have been secured. The Government have secured their objectives as well. I shall briefly indicate that our reservations are concerned with the failure to abolish planting rights until 2015, and we are concerned about national envelopes, particularly green harvesting, which we see as a means of maintaining production support and which ought to be looked at very carefully.
Finally, I turn to marketing. Marketing is the key to getting close to the consumer. In many of our discussions in Europe, marketing was reduced to advertising. Marketing is about much more than advertising; it is making sure that you are listening to the consumer, reacting to him and producing what he wants. It is no good telling him that European wine is the best in the world if he actually prefers to drink something else. It boils down to something as simple as that.
That is, in essence, what our report said. In closing, I shall briefly—too briefly—thank members of the committee who applied themselves with great energy to this inquiry. Above all, I shall single out two people: Robert Preston, our Clerk, who in his ineffable way crafted a report that all members of the committee could sign up to and who, as a result, has moved on to bigger and better things. We regret his—I was going to say “his passing”, but that is the wrong word—elevation. I also single out our specialist adviser, Professor Sir John Marsh. Those of us who know him know that he brings a great deal of intellectual, analytical vigour to these matters. We thank them.
7.58 pm
Lord Teverson: My Lords, I congratulate the Committee and the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, on this report. It fascinates me that we are having the debate about wine after the debate on human fertilisation; in real life it is usually the other way round.
I remember that when I was an MEP, whenever the acronym CMO came up, we used to blank out because it was a euphemism. It was not about common market organisation, but about common market fixing. That is why this regime and this regime change are so welcome at this time. The symptoms of those market distortions are surpluses—half of them are used for
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What is the result of that market fixing? The result is a bill of €1.25 billion per annum, half of the production of which is distilled, which effectively means removing it from the market. Commissioner Fischer Boel herself, in the preface to the report on change in the regime, says:
“The European Union has a budget to help our wine producers. But we spend far too much of it on simply disposing of surplus wine for which there is no market”.
We also have a loss of market share across the Continent. I was amazed to hear that there are 2.5 million wine holdings throughout Europe, the majority of which—not all, in France, they are better off, but in the other nations—are still effectively in rural poverty, despite that €1.25 billion.
The wine regime missed or bypassed the 2003 CAP reform, and I am delighted that we in Europe are now taking this forward and not waiting for the health check, let alone for 2013. What I am not personally comfortable with about the committee's recommendations is national envelopes. As the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, himself said, there is so much room for abuse and backdoor subsidisation in that area.
It is expected that about 200,000 hectares will be grubbed up. That is a huge land mass. When we think that agricultural growing prices are at their highest worldwide for some time, I should have thought that natural market forces would make the subsidising of grubbing-up less necessary. I also note that the committee report, although it supports it in the short term, is concerned about a neutral budget. Yes, there needs to be transition in the fiscal regime, but to come up with a neutral budget after such a large and radical reform is not adequate. I very much support the ending of the market support regime by ending distillation and the fact that we should be able to expand and have new vineyards, but we cannot support grubbing up and have new vineyards at the same time.
I certainly support the reform of the quality regime. Exactly as the noble Lord said, as long as it is true, we should be able to put whatever we want on labels. Although not mentioned in the report, I am also pleased to see the end of export refunds.
My party does not have a great deal of policy in this area. My noble friend will no doubt put me right on that when summing up. We normally make policy at conferences, but I must admit that at conferences, we are normally more concerned with wine consumption than the production regime.
8.03 pm
Lord Plumb: My Lords, I support the report of our very able committee chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, so I can be brief. As he said, since the report was published, we know that the Council has considered its position and made a decision. We can be reasonably satisfied that many of our recommendations were incorporated in the final political agreement and compromise proposal, which I gather was agreed on 19 December.
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One notes from that that planting restrictions will not be introduced in member states, which of course is good for the United Kingdom. The wine producers here are still expanding. We should always remember that some of our wines are becoming very competitive. It also means that wine production can continue without the threat of a planting ban and that producers have the flexibility to make a marketable product and have the option, as I understand it, under the agreement, of using some sugar at a level that will make it marketable.
Our report is based on the European Union as a whole. The main focus throughout has been on the question of the national envelopes, but it is their size and content that will be the issue. I am personally concerned about the national envelopes—although the principle is good—because of how they may be used. That can be done only by reducing the amount of funding from rural development schemes. I hope that the Minister can assure us that that will not be at the expense of rural development generally.
As we understand it, member states will also be free to disperse funds through those national envelopes by means of a decoupled single farm payment of the supporting programmes to remove surplus production nationally. It will be interesting to see how each nation in the large production areas will respond.
As I see it, our mission to France to witness the industry in Languedoc and Bordeaux revealed three features that perhaps impede competitiveness. It is fragmented; it is producer-dominated; and 71 per cent of the vineyards consist of about 5 hectares. They are competing with wines that are produced on holdings of 50 hectares plus. It is seen very much as a cultural craft, not so much as a commercial operation. Growers see the need for change themselves. It was the first time ever in my history that I heard a Frenchman say that he did not want subsidies.
We have accepted the general situation in our report: there should be a voluntary and subsidised grubbing-up programme. As the chairman knew that I was a bit of a dirt farmer, it was always my question to ask those giving evidence about grubbing up. That is a matter of concern to us all. As the chairman said, the cost of that regime is €1.3 million a year, which is part of the overall expenditure of the common agricultural policy.
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